There is a silence that overtakes the room when he storms out, curses and oaths aimed at God and everyone overtaking my hearing and bouncing off concrete walls and looming brick towers all around, a silence promising recompense for his actions – the erratic motions of the insane man, my friend – something for which there will never be repayment, and in this silence it is suddenly so crystalline and clear to me that I have lost him, that I will never again see him as he was just then, before the words spoke to him, before he lost his soul on a warm night in this anonymous city.

As so many things are wont to do these days our tale begins with a man who has recently imbibed just a few too many beverages of a beer-like nature, although whether or not this was the fault of the rather inconvenient pink unicorn currently occupying our protagonist’s upstairs bedroom will be left, I’m sure, to your able imagination.

When you’re locked in a top secret government bunker with a disgraced CIA agent, a stripper and a Columbian drug runner you just want out, and if it wasn’t for the polar bear we probably would never have made it out of there alive.

I’ve gotten a winner, but first, some comments: some very strong opening lines here. Some also not so strong — and quite a few with typos and errors and misused words. People. PEOPLE. Check yourself. ‘Fore you wreck yourself.